Original Joe's restaurant in the Tenderloin district of San Francisco. Photo of waiter, Angelo Viducic, age 63, hussling out a dinner order from the kitchen. He came to work there in 1960 at the age of 20 and has been there ever since.
CRAIG LEE / The Chronicle

Photo: CRAIG LEE

Original Joe's restaurant in the Tenderloin district of San...

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Eat at Joe's / In San Francisco, all roads lead to this Tenderloin original

Step past two guys sharing a crack pipe on the corner of Taylor and Turk, push open the doors to Original Joe's and take a seat at the long counter.

Here, where a mist of grease from frying calamari hangs in the air and massive hamburgers broil over mesquite charcoal, it becomes clear that everything you think you know about San Francisco-style dining is wrong.

Forget artisan cheese and baby greens and Dungeness crab, and the lovely cafes in which they are served. This counter is the city's culinary ground zero, baby - a place where cooks slam halibut into blackened saute pans and tuxedoed waiters whip up zabaglione with cheap Chablis. It's the original Original Joe's, the grandpappy of Northern California's style of eating.

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In a region where hundreds of restaurants die each year and microgreens and heirloom pork are discussed with the same intensity as politics, the 66-year- old Original Joe's is an improbable survivor.

Smack in the middle of one of the most troubled blocks in the city, it should have closed down when the Tenderloin went from decent to dicey in the late 1960s, or when the economy tanked in the 1980s. If nothing else, the California cuisine movement should have killed it. After all, Alice Waters didn't make her name selling Manhattans, chicken Parmigiana and 20-ounce porterhouse steaks.

Cooks here were slicing apple wood-smoked bacon, using bread from a small North Beach bakery and pan-frying local sole long before California chefs had much appreciation for regional, artisan food.

The open kitchen, popularized at places like Boulevard and Chez Panisse, was simply a practical solution at the tiny Original Joe's. So was filling the broiler with Lazzari mesquite charcoal. Mesquite burned hotter longer, and thus was more economical. Even late night, celebrity-packed bar dining, made popular in the 1980s by the late, great Stars, is derivative of Joe's.

The formula - a muscular restaurant a good step above a diner but still chummy and comfortable - is so successful that it's been copied both in name and spirit ever since. Dozens of other Joe's-style restaurants share the name and the maniacal Luigi chef icon that presides over the restaurant. They employ tuxedoed waiters and exhibition cooking and offer the same crazy mix of spaghetti and steaks. But those other places are distant cousins, bad imposters or downright rip-offs.

Just to be clear about all this Joe business, the first place in San Francisco named Joe's was a little lunch counter on Broadway called the New Joe's. (See story on Page E4 for details.) Original Joe's is the second Joe's, but it's the one that survived. As such, it is widely accepted as the real, bona fide Joe's - the one from which all others have sprung.

The place was born in 1937, when a Croatian named Ante "Tony" Rodin and a couple of partners opened the doors of a 14-stool restaurant with sawdust on the floor. Rodin's daughter, son-in-law and grandchildren still run the restaurant, which now has 140 seats.

Why Original Joe's has survived, even after the neighborhood went south and food fashion passed by its big portions and burgundy vinyl booths, is simple. Customers credit the mix of large, inexpensive, slightly uptown meals served with a familiarity that comes from cooks and waiters who have been there for decades.

It's like "Cheers," but with a harder edge and really great lamb chops.

Successful formula

"They have a formula and they execute it. When you walk in, you know what you are going to get," says Gregory Johnson, formerly in the specialty food business and a regular patron of trendier spots like Delfina and Zuni Cafe. He's partial to what he calls the $24.95 "mile-high filet" - nearly 20 ounces of tenderloin hand-cut in the basement of the big, groaning building that houses Joe's.

On a recent Tuesday, Johnson was deep into a $9.95 daily special of short ribs and horseradish, while his wife, Michelle, tackled a $6.75 sandwich made with two eggs and three thick strips of bacon cooked in a big pour of olive oil. Like good regulars, they sat at the counter.

Not every food sophisticate in the Bay Area appreciates the worn, grease- soaked elegance of the place. Some are appalled by the breading on the fish and piles of bacon and onions drowning the fried calves' liver. The sawed-off swordfish over the bathroom door and the fake wine barrels hold no charm. Nor do the fellows at the bar, some of whom have been coming almost daily since the 1960s.

Trendy it's not

"If you're looking for the trendiest place and the newest cult wine, this ain't it," Johnson says. "But there's a sense about the patina. It has a lovely character that says something about San Francisco and its history."

Ron Carriveau, who always orders Salisbury steak, started patronizing Joe's in the 1960s. He's a retired iron worker who had lunch recently with his wife, Carol, and their 26-year-old son, Justin.

The family drives in from Concord, eschewing all other Joe's. With the $4 parking lot right next door, they don't have to wade through the neighborhood.

The draw is simple. "The quality is always the same, no matter what," Carriveau says.

You can bet his son will return on his own, along with a whole generation of younger people who come to Joe's seeking nostalgia or because they appreciate a place that offers both kitsch and a big meal.

Still, the owners struggle to keep the place relevant. Some nights they now have live jazz in the newly furbished cabaret room in the back, taking up where the dissipated North Beach jazz scene has left off.

But don't expect similar innovations on the menu, which is as historic as it is filling. "Fifteen years ago, we added some more romaine to the salad. I think that was it," says Marie Duggan, 56, daughter of founder Tony Rodin and the undisputed rock at the center of Joe's. When the place took a hit in the Zagat Survey for its "tattered" interior, Duggan's answer was to give the New York-based guidebook the one-armed salute - and to not change a thing.

That extends to the menu. Joe's Special, a scramble of eggs, spinach, onions and chuck ground at the restaurant, tastes the same today as it did in World War II. Just the price has changed, jumping from 75 cents to $8.95.

Joe DiMaggio loved it, according to one of DiMaggio's favorite waiters, Angelo Viducic. He's been there since the early 1960s, sweating it out day in and day out in a black tux and white shirt.

The house pays to get the jackets cleaned, and most waiters have at least a half dozen, which they store in a locker room in the basement. Customers are loyal to specific waiters, who in turn recall exactly how they like a dish or a drink.

The men who wait tables - and they have almost always been men - are equally adept at carrying three plates of food on each arm as they are at gently escorting out any of the neighborhood's drunken denizens who lurch in.

Windsor "Windy" Eli, who is 80 years old and has worked at Joe's for half a century, says he waits on the adult grandchildren of longtime customers. Viducic says he's served all the stars and musicians and politicians who made it a point to eat at Joe's - especially when the place was really rocking a few decades ago. "Dick Van Dyke, Kim Novak, the Brady Bunch guys - you name it,

I take care of them," he says.

Famous or not, plenty of customers come back just for the Joe's Special.

Tenderloin original

You can find variations of the dish on menus from Anchorage to Miami. But there is strong evidence to suggest the dish started right here in the Tenderloin. Or, maybe it was invented at the New Joe's up on Broadway and popularized here.

Founder Rodin says he doesn't recall who invented it. He's 90 now and, until he got pneumonia earlier this year, worked at the restaurant every day. His wife, Florence, died five years ago. Now, Marie Duggan runs the place with her husband, John, a former stockbroker, and her two kids.

She is clearly in charge, ruling with an outsized personality that is as firm as it is kind. Like the cooks and the waiters, Duggan knows almost every old-timer who comes in and what they eat. ("That's the general. He's a real general. Comes in for a hamburger on a plate every Tuesday.") She decides if a $100 check made out to cash will be accepted. ("Aw, go ahead. I'm sure it's good.") The street drunks and bad seeds don't mess with her, but she lets a fellow with no apparent home and a pocket full of tattered books stop in for a daily bowl of minestrone.

Though she's half Italian, she's adamant about the unsung role the Croatians played in the early San Francisco restaurant scene. She ticks off a list of places - Sam's, Tadich, Mayes Oyster House, US Restaurant. "Slavs to the core," she says.

"We are a stubborn group," she says, explaining why so many Croations got into the restaurant business in San Francisco. "We go after something. We don't care how hard it is. This is a culture that's used to adversity and strife." To make her point, she stands up and pretends to bang her head against a wall.

Trying to get a recipe from her is a challenge. Take the best-selling item, a hamburger that may well be the best in the city. Duggan doesn't have any silly modesty or claims of old family secrets. After all, most of the food is cooked right in front of the customer. It's just that they don't really write much down at Joe's. In fact, nothing at Joe's is computerized, save for a cash register. The waiters just tell the cooks the order, and their checks are tallied up by hand at the end of the day.

No written recipes

"You want the recipe?" she asks, exasperated at repeated requests. "There's your recipe," she says, jabbing a thumb in the direction of a stainless-steel broiler manned by a guy with forearms that would make Popeye bury his head in shame. "Sit down here and watch. Learn."

The broiler cook - on this particular day, Cecilio Garcia who has been working at Original Joe's for a mere 23 years - scoops up such a big handful of coarsely ground chuck that it surely must be for at least two hamburgers. Is it 8 ounces? 12? "If it was 12, I'd kiss somebody," says Duggan, who realizes portion control is not the restaurant's strong suit.

Garcia dips the meat in a stainless-steel pan of chopped onions, slaps it on a white plastic board and, with a blur of hand and spatula, forms a patty the approximate width and girth of a size seven loafer.

He drops the patty into a circa-1950s mesquite-burning broiler and cooks it to a perfect medium-rare, a quick tap on the top with a finger his only guide. He slices off a quarter of a baguette from the Italian-French Bakery, one of the oldest bakeries in North Beach, and scoops out the soft inner core. He smears the inside with a spoonful of margarine and nestles in the meat, cutting it on the diagonal.

He presses the cut edges down on the grill for just a flash, cauterizing the meat to give the sandwich a clean, finished look.

The plate is handed to a waiter, who shakes the oil from a fryer basket of thick, hand-cut potatoes and tongs a dozen onto the plate. With a white cloth covering his forearm and a seriousness of purpose that's easy to mistake for surliness, the waiter sets the dish in front of a customer.

And there it is. No fancy-pants lettuce or tomato. No mayonnaise, cheese or ketchup to mask the flavor. Just a burger so good it's best served naked.

So, uh, what about e. coli? Duggan rolls her eyes and raises her fingers to make the sign of the cross. "Oh, please. The people who eat here, e.coli is not their issue."

Actually, the basement of the big building the family owns, a building she calls "an old battleship," sports immaculate walk-ins. Whole lambs hang, ready to be butchered. Plastic bins are full of potatoes and ice water. Hand-rolled beef roasts, which can be purchased to-go, whole and roasted, for $75, are stacked neatly on a top shelf.

In-house butcher

All the meat sold at Original Joe's is butchered here, and the steaks and chops are cut so big they make Duggan's daughter, Elena, cringe.

Elena, along with her younger brother, John, will take over when their parents retire. Using her hotel and restaurant management degree from the University of San Francisco and her experience at Willa, her Noe Valley boutique, Elena already handles plenty of Joe's business.

Down in the walk-in, Elena winces when mom starts bragging about the size of the filets. How big are they? Mom grabs the scale. "I don't want to know!" Elena says, mindful that the portions carve deeply into the profit margin.

But what they do at Joe's can't be taught in school. It's not really about portion control or changing customer preferences or technological upgrades. Joe's doesn't flinch at fad or fashion.

When Marie or Elena hug customers hello, there aren't any fancy air kisses. Everyone from the 30-something PG&E workers to district attorney candidates to young rockers get the same treatment. Even a woman from the Tenderloin scene who simply wanted to get her battered Carl's Jr. cup filled up with a double margarita on the rocks one night got both service and respect.

"You know nobody's looking down at you in here," says Marie.

Because everybody's equal at Joe's, where the food is real, the prices are good and no one has to apologize about the size of dinner.

JOE'S SPECIAL

This dish is on menus across the country, but the original recipe was made popular at Original Joe's in the Tenderloin. It's nice to chop or grind your own chuck, which is what the cooks do at the restaurant, but purchased ground chuck may be used. Make sure to buy a grind with about 15 percent fat. Also, the amount of spinach may be reduced to 1/2 cup if desired.

INSTRUCTIONS

Heat the oil in a skillet. Add the onion and cook over medium-high heat, stirring from time to time, until it just starts to brown. Add the meat and saute, stirring, until it just loses its pink color.

Add the spinach to the pan and stir it in. Add the Italian seasoning, salt and pepper. Break the eggs into a bowl and beat with a fork to blend. Add to the center of the skillet and scramble with the beef mixture.

At Original Joe's, some of the waiters call this frothy, egg-y dessert "honeymoon sauce" for its alleged restorative properties. The traditional recipe involves Marsala and whipping the eggs with the sugar as a separate step. At Joe's, a simpler version involves white wine and a one-step preparation. Although at Joe's, this is served in 16-ounce beer schooners, we found that an 8-ounce serving is plenty.

INGREDIENTS

Juice of 1/4 lemon

1/2 cup sugar

5 egg yolks

3/4 cup white wine, such as Chablis

INSTRUCTIONS

Combine all ingredients in the top of a double boiler, or in a stainless-steel bowl, or in a zabaglione pan (a copper pot with a long handle and rounded bottom). If using a zabaglione pan, cook, whisking constantly, over direct (low-medium) heat. If using a double boiler or bowl, place over barely simmering water (use medium-low heat) and immediately start whisking vigorously, creating a light, frothy sauce. Continue to whisk for a total of about 4 to 6 minutes, until the mixture has increased in volume and thickened. Be careful. If the mixture gets too hot, it will curdle.

The key to sorting out the relationship among all the restaurants with "Joe" in the name is that only the Original Joe's in the Tenderloin and the one in San Jose are connected.

One of the early owner's kids run the San Jose restaurant. All the other Joe's are either spin-offs started by partners of former partners or have nothing to do with the Tenderloin restaurant.

But even the original Original Joe's isn't exactly original. It's based on New Joe's, which began on Broadway in 1934. New Joe's was so small -- 13 stools and a counter -- that all the cooking was done right in front of the customers. Exhibition cooking is still the draw at most places called Joe's.

Joe was Joe Morelo, a nightclub owner who paid for the place. But that's debatable. A small spot called Joe's Lunch preceded Morelo's involvement, says Marie Duggan, who runs Original Joe's. Her father, Ante "Tony" Rodin, and three other fellows started it in 1937. Both Rodin and longtime partner, Louis Rocca, had worked at New Joe's.

The concept proved so successful that for the next couple of decades, some of the Original Joe's partners took on new partners and gave birth to the now- closed Marina Joe's (officially called Original Joe's II, but we're just getting confusing now), Westlake Joe's, Marin Joe's and, eventually, others.

Although they didn't use the name, other early San Francisco restaurants that opened around the same time employed what is now known as Joe's style. Among them are Polo's in the Tenderloin and Vanessi's on Broadway, both of which have closed.

Joe's fever has spread beyond California. There's Crabby Joe's in Daytona Beach, Fla., and Thirteen Coins in Seattle, which isn't called Joe's but Duggan says might as well be. "They came right here and stole it. I watched them," she declares.

And they keep coming. Just last week, a brand new Little Joe's opened on Gough. And in Canada, Scott Shipley began running an upscale Original Joe's franchise in Alberta in 1997. He claims he didn't even know there was an Original Joe's in San Francisco. Duggan and her family said they are looking into it.

Oh, and the New Joe's on Broadway, where all this started? It closed in 1970. Owner Lorenzo DiBene claimed he was driven out by topless joints and expensive parking.